The New York Times
May 3, 2011
William Campbell, Played ‘Star Trek’ Klingon, Dies at 87
By MARGALIT FOX
William Campbell, an actor who was widely familiar to film and television audiences and who was also known as the first husband of Judith Campbell Exner, a mistress of President John F. Kennedy, died on Thursday in Woodland Hills, Calif. He was 87.
His death, at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital, was confirmed by Jennifer Fagen, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which administers the hospital.
Mr. Campbell was often described as resembling Liberace. (The basis for comparison appears to have been physical rather than sartorial.) He used the resemblance to good effect in a memorable guest role on “Star Trek,” in early 1967. Titled “The Squire of Gothos” and broadcast in the show’s first season, the episode featured Mr. Campbell as a dandified alien obsessed with human history of the 18th century.
He returned in Season 2 for what is very likely the best-loved episode in the history of the show, “The Trouble With Tribbles,” first broadcast in late 1967. Mr. Campbell played Koloth, a Klingon captain contending with the title creatures, wildly proliferating things that resemble a powder puff crossed with a potato.
Mr. Campbell reprised the role in 1994 on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” His other television work includes guest spots on “Perry Mason,” “Bonanza,” “Gunsmoke” and “The Streets of San Francisco.”
His film credits include “Love Me Tender,” Elvis Presley’s first picture; “Man Without a Star,” directed by King Vidor; “Cell 2455 Death Row,” based on the memoir by the convict Caryl Chessman; “Dementia 13,” directed by Francis Ford Coppola; and “Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte,” directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland.
In later years, Mr. Campbell worked as the chief fund-raiser for the Motion Picture & Television Fund.
William Campbell was born in Newark on Oct. 30, 1923; he received his training at the American Theater Wing. In 1952 he married Judith Immoor, as Ms. Exner was then known, who was 18 at the time; they divorced in 1958. She took up with Frank Sinatra, through whom she met President Kennedy and the Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, who also became her lover.
In an interview with People magazine in 1988, Ms. Exner confirmed her affair with the president and said that she had arranged a series of meetings between him and Mr. Giancana.
Mr. Campbell’s survivors include his third wife, Tereza. Information on other survivors was unavailable.
Ms. Exner died in 1999. In an interview with The New York Times in 1975, Mr. Campbell expressed surprise at the turn her life took after their marriage ended, describing her as a “quiet, family kind of girl” from “a typical American home.”
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